The 26 Best Self-Improvement Posts Ever

Need a place to find the best self-improvement blog posts ever? One big list of inspiring geniuses? Well, here it is… my list of the best self-improvement posts ever:

1. – How to be Creative – Originally published in 2004 by Hugh Macleod at the Gaping Void. If you haven’t read it, you’re missing some of the best advice ever given freely over the internet. If you have read it, read it again…

2. – How to Make Money From Your Blog – If I had a dollar for every person who started blogging after reading this post… well… I could quit my job. This post motivated untold numbers of people to start blogging for money. Some of them have quit their jobs and rose to internet fame, others are squeaking out a modest income, and others gave up. This post tells you in specific detail how to get a blog off the ground and turn it into a business. But beware, Steve is brutally honest in this post.

3. – Zen To Done (ZTD): The Ultimate Simple Productivity System – This is a post you can put to use to improve you life immediately. In fact it is the beginning of a series of posts. Leo Babauta of Zen Habits lays out a productivity system that focuses on habits, action, structure, simplification, and goals. This post starts with 10 essential habits. At the end of the post you’ll see another post for the next entry in ZTD system. Or you could just click the link at the bottom and buy the eBook.

5. – The Art of the Finish: How to Go From Busy to Accomplished – This post was written about three years ago on Scott H Young’s blog. It was written by Cal Newport who was a PhD student at MIT. He made the observation that many highly accomplished people did not have good productivity habits. What they did have is a common trait – they completed projects. They are compulsive finishers. That habit of finishing then unlocks opportunities and big scores. Cal gives us detail on completetion centric planning.

6. – 50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do – Marc and Angel give us a comprehensive guide to self reliance and self-education. This huge list states a thing we should know how to do, tells us why we should know it, and then supplies us with the information to learn it. Man this must have taken Marc and Angel a long time to put together. Thanks, Marc and Angel!

7. – Do You Have Weirdo Syndrome? – I don’t know about you, but I’ve always felt like a weirdo. Like I never quite fit in. I think about weird things, sometimes I wear the wrong clothes, and I have weird ideas. And when I try to fit in, I give up a part of myself and I still don’t fit in. Charlie Gilkey addresses this in a wonderful way – “You can’t be remarkable and fit in at the same time.”

8. – 120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power – Luciano Passuello supplies us with a list of 120 things we can do starting today to help us think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash our brain’s full potential. Luciano also adds 35 more ideas from his readers.

9. – 279 Days to Overnight Success – This isn’t a blog post. It’s a 79 page pdf written by Chris Guillebeau about how he became a full-time writer and professional blogger in 279 days.

10. – 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job – This is by far one of the most visited blog posts ever written. Ever wonder why you should start a business? This advice isn’t for everyone, but it might be for you. If you are interested in working for yourself. This is a must read.

12. – The 99 Best Business Books: The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List – From the site: “MBA programs don’t have a monopoly on business knowledge: you can teach yourself everything you need to know to succeed in life and at work.” If you follow Josh Kaufman’s Personal MBA program you can skip b-school and $150,000 loan; and get a world-class business education just by reading these books.

13. – Top 5 Ways to Build a Wonderful Life – I recall the day this post made the front page of Digg and Delicious. What a fantastic piece of writing. John Wesley wrote this back when he owned Pick the Brain. It’s short and simple and to the point.

14. – Fifty Success Habits – Craig Harper will tell you the hard core truth about self-improvement. It takes courage and work and sweat. It isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. This is one of his best posts, ever.

14. – Mark Twain’s Top 9 Tips for Living a Kick-Ass Life – Henrik Edberg publishes the Positivity Blog, and this is one of his best posts ever. Why? You’ll have to read it. He combines a series of quotes from the famous American writer Mark Twain, with 9 tips for living. Mark Twain was an odd duck and did things differently than others. That combined with his genius mind is what makes his advice so powerful. Mark Twain’s insight combined with Henrik’s commentary, gives us a real sense of what it takes to develop our potential.

15. – A Devious Trick to Handle Chronic Complainers – This is one of those simple pieces of advice I had known about years ago. It’s so simple it makes me laugh out loud. Complaining drives me nuts! Especially when there is nothing you can say or do to help the person complaining. They shoot down everything you suggest. No doubt, this piece of advice from Alexander Kjerulf AKA The Chief Happiness Officer, is golden.

16. – Relationships: 8 tips for finding the right thing to say in a difficult situation – The quality of our life is only as good as the quality of our relationships. Communication is key to creating and maintaining healthy relationships. Gretchen Rubin from the Happiness Project gives us 8 tips on communicating in difficult situations. It isn’t the easy situations that make or break us, but what we say and do when the situation is challenging.

17. – 106 Tips to Become a Master Connector – Donald Latumahina put together this list on his Life Optimizer blog. Donald summarized the best information he gleaned from the book Never Eat Alone and put them into 106 easily digestible tips. Relationship building is one of the critical components to success in business, success in life, and self-improvement. This is straight forward advice for the 21st century.

18. – How to Defrag Your Mind In 5 Easy Steps – I know one of my biggest problems is I have too much crap in my head competing for my attention – too many ideas. To move forward we’ve got to focus on the important stuff and follow through. Dragos Roua gives us a simple formula he uses to prioritize and move forward.

19. – How to Make Friends and Get a Social Life – To some people this stuff might seem obvious. But to many of us geeks with social anxiety we need this advice. Solid social skills are more important to happiness, financial success, and longevity than any other skill you can acquire. Chris at SucceedSocially.com offers critical advice for the shy, anxious, and awkward.

20. – Connect with Your Creative Writer – This one from Tina Su at Think Simple Now made the front page of Digg. She explains creativity and mental blocks, offers her 8 step plan to overcoming writers block, and finishes up by offering 13 tips to unlocking your creativity. Tina had a baby boy this year. Congrats Tina and good luck to you and your family.

21. – How to Travel Full-Time For Less Than $14,000 Per Year – No doubt travel is a key ingedients to self-improvement. Travel opens your eyes to opportunity, ideas, culture, diversity, and knowledge. This guest post by Nora Dunn on I Will Teach You to Be Rich, is a long, detailed, comprehensive guide to cheap travel. She tells us how to save 80% on airfare, how to get free accommodations, how to work while travelling, and a host of other tips for cheap travel.

23. – 8 Harsh Truths that Will Improve Your Life – This is a guest post by Glen Allsop on Dumb Little Man that takes an original angle on the personal development subject. He takes a series of apparently negative truths about life, and draws lessons from them, positive lessons.

24. – The Best Way to Solve a Problem: Give Up – Seems counterintuitive doesn’t it? I’m not giving it away, but this post is right on, sometimes you have to quit. It’s the only was to improve. Johnathan at the Illuminated Mind does a lot of posts that seem to offer counterintuitive advice, and in each case the advice is good.

25. – Six Conversational Habits to Ditch Today – These six tips are obvious, but very few of us have mastered them. They are bad habit we all need to break if we want quality communication and quality relationships. My favorite is – stop seeking attention by complaining. Thanks Sara!

26. – Seven Can’t Miss Ways to Kick-Start the Writing Habit – This is simple and actionable advice on writing. Part of the writing process is simply sitting down and writing something… anything… this post will leave you with no excuse not to start writing now. Don’t forget to check the reader tips too.

Do you have enough to read now? No? Okay then, I also want to share a few of my favorite self-improvement books:

well I can say that I am probably one of very few people who discovered making money from your blog not as a result of reading steve pavlina’s post but as a result of stumbling across a website called 2createawebsite.com which is a fantastic site for anyone who has a website or a blog to laern about how you can make yout site a success and make money. I have however since discovered steve pavlina’s site and its definately one of the best and content rich personal development sites I have ever been on.

Thanks for this. I see Glen Aslop made your list – he is one very cool and interesting person and has a clear-cut and compelling way of writing about self-improvement. Will make the time to read the other links.

Wow!!! What more can I say other than just that. These are fantastic and truly inspirational posts. I’ve made it through just over half thus far and have learned more in 2 hrs than in the past 4 months.

I wanted to simply take a moment to express my gratitude for such sweet resources not yet found by anyone else I’ve come across.

I must say, so far, my favorite post has to be “How To Defrag Your Mind In 5 Easy Steps”! When originally browsing through each of the 26, I went to that one first abc foremost due to the nature of the description…it’s me to a T!!!

Thanks again! I’ll be sharing these will my networks and friends after I’ve finished checking them all out…I’m sure they’ll be as pleased as I.